For me, if Michigan wants to be the mini-Ivy league of the midwest (along with Northwestern), then all that Santa Ono and the Regents should be saying is that not only are we co-operating but we are holding our staff and players to the highest level of honesty and accountability as we hold our students.
Yet, to have an investigation going on now for almost a month is ridiculous. There is co-operating with the FBI and NCAA and Big10 and simply bringing in all your players and coaches and videotaping the interviews to pass along to NCAA. Compliance department is so big, they can spare a few people to knock this out in a week. Simply to players, if you violate the student code of conduct on honesty and integrity, you are out of the University at end of semester and not playing immediately. To coaches, if you come clean, we will defend your reputation to stay here or get another job when this is all wrapped up. If you lie, there will be immediate termination and no severance of any kind which will tell the world your involvement in this incident.
But, to have the FBI still in looking into things with the computer when you fired the guy in January and to still not have a complete handle on this sign-stealing .... implies (does not prove) that there is stonewalling. And before you say there is limited things that they can do ... it is self-reporting in NCAA terms. There are ways to get ahead of these things (including having your own computer forensic department (with all your PhDs) investigate at least copies of your internal back-ups, networks and computer hard-drives to speed this along -- as nothing is more damaging than this drip-drip-drip, hoping the faucet leak will eventually fix itself. If CS used university printers and computers to create these things, you will have network data as things pass through somewhere.
And, the simple question to OC/DC/Hairball is why was someone so important still making $55,000 but you treated him as a clairvoyant (or at least a data science expert who should get paid $100,000+ for that code breaking knowledge) and listened to him as he screamed up and down the sidelines?
But, this whole back and forth when you want people's opinion is defensive (and time wasting). Part of investigations is to look at oddities and look at them more. In my old job, I based my final review of a work product as not trying to prove that my subordinates did everything right to check a box but rather try to punch holes in the work from all angles. That is how investigations work -- not trying to find why something maybe okay (simple solution) but look at things that seem weird and keep on pulling strings. 9 of the thing may lead nowhere but the 10th maybe the thing that blows the whole work product up. This is where Jim failed (hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil). He wasn't curious how someone broke the code that 110 universities have tried legally before and couldn't touch what this guy did and that is where most of Michigan is at right now .... we did nothing wrong and you can't prove it!!!
